Date of Birth: 18th December 1978

Significant others: Married to Tom Cruise, Katie now has a daughter, Suri, and is herself one of five children to parents Kathleen and Martin Joseph, who never really did anything celeb-ish.

One minute rundown: Dawson's Creek - a show about the lives of a group of teens who spoke in continuous, confusing metaphors, first shot Holmes to fame in 1997. Prior to that she'd been in a couple of films, but nothing mainstream. Her minor performance in The Ice Storm (with Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline) attracted the attention of Dawson's director Kevin Williamson, after a scene in which she fell into someone's lap - if only everything was that easy. Katie turned down the initial audition to perform in her school play (bless), but luckily a bemused Kevin agreed to let her audition by videotape, with her mum reading Dawson's lines in their family home's basement. She won the part of "girl next door" Joey Potter and moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, to film the first series of the show. During this run, Katie dated co-star Joshua Jackson, who she described as her first love (bless, again).

After six successful seasons, the show came to an end, and by 2003 Holmes had also dated second love, American Pie actor Chris Klein. Thankfully she'd completed some slightly more successful movies by this point, including Sundance Film Festival hit "Pieces Of April" and "The Gift", which featured her first nude scene. Holmes had become a Hollywood star.

In 2005, just one month after breaking off her engagement to Klein, Holmes the heart-breaker hooked up with Tom Cruise, impressed no doubt with his Top Guns (sigh). Cruise was smitten, jumping on Oprah Winfrey's couch professing his love and leading the world to believe he was (even more) crazy. After just two months, the couple got engaged in Paris, and after six months, Holmes was pregnant with the wacky Scientologist's spawn. Beautiful Suri was born in April 2006 and the couple were married that November in a fairy tale castle in Rome. Reportedly, shrunken Tom needed steps to match his bride's height in the wedding photos, but we won't tell anyone.

True facts: Apparently Katie was offered the role of Buffy The Vampire Slayer before Sarah Michelle Gellar. Luckily for Sarah, she turned it down and went onto snog big-chinned best mate Dawson in the Creek, which in the end was only slightly more appealing than battling a load of zombies (probably).